``Goldman had executed and cleared trades for Bayou, and there were questions about how well Goldman supervised the account. On July 30, Goldman paid $20.7 million to roughly 200 Bayou investors in the United States. Those investors, unsecured creditors in a separate Bayou bankruptcy case, were awarded that amount by a securities arbitration panel in June 2010.

It was one of the few bright spots of the Bayou story, but it didn't last. The same day Goldman paid the investors, the firm filed its own creditor's claim for the same amount -- $20.7 million -- in the Bayou bankruptcy. Goldman contended that paying the award had made it, too, a Bayou creditor. If the court agrees, the investors who won their arbitration case -- also unsecured creditors of Bayou -- will be out of luck. ''